Southern Furniture 1680-1830

High-Post Bedstead
Attributed to Samuel White
Petersburg, Virginia, 1790-1810
Mahogany with red gum, yellow pine, and maple

Most early high-post bedsteads made use of curtains that hung from metal rings threaded on iron rods placed between the posts. This Virginia bedstead illustrates a more complex system that retains its original lath frame. Resting atop the posts, the frame is fitted with pulleys over which cords were placed to draw the curtains up in what was known as drapery. When the curtains were in the raised position, the cords were tied off around pairs of brass cloak pins screwed into the posts. The whole assembly was topped off with an ornate cornice akin to the reproduction example shown here.

Structural details reveal this bedstead to be the work of Samuel White of Petersburg. Nothing is known of White's training or origins, but his active role in the Petersburg furniture trade for nearly forty years suggests that he was a successful businessman.

Southern Bedsteads
From the early seventeenth century through the 1850s, a fully dressed high-post bedstead was frequently the most valuable piece of furniture in well-appointed southern houses. The expense lay in the textiles rather than the wooden frame, however. When George Washington purchased a new bed for his Virginia home in 1759, London cabinetmaker and upholsterer Philip Bell charged him just under, £ 5 for a mahogany and beech bedstead with an upholstered cornice, and £24 for matching chintz bed curtains, a custom-made quilt, and a pair of large mattresses.

Although viewed as decorative accessories today, bed curtains originally were important functional components of a high-post bed. In the winter, tightly closed curtains provided protection from the subfreezing indoor temperatures common before the advent of central heating. During the summer, gauze mosquito curtains were often substituted to ward off insects.